Lots of people take stock in their new-year posts; I'm thinking about what's coming up. Soon I will be leaving group. It's inevitable. They said they want to discharge me in January. It's mondo-bizarro how these complete strangers have come to mean so much to me. Well, some more than others... and most of the "some" have already been discharged. So I can say I'm on the tail-end of what I consider my cadre: peers in age and stage. Which means I gotta get my ass out the door soon. But what next?
I was talking to A about a week or so ago and she suggested I "work with the energy of the solstice" (so yeah, it was around Dec 21) and consider, in a playful way, the concept of starting over new. She said it was important to consider it as mental play, not a serious undertaking. I didn't know what to make of her comment at first so I put it on the back burner.
During some idle time when I got home I turned it over in my mind. I could see why she said to not consider it seriously. I take everything seriously, perhaps too much so. When I thought seriously about it, I started to cry. So many things have just gouged the hell out of me in the last four months that the idea of starting over new is like... hello? I'm barely scarred over! Give me some time! But as a "pretend" question, it made me feel a bit liberated from my sadness. I thought about last January, when I was starting my "year of quitting." I never imagined the ending it would have, or should I say, the last third of the year. Act 3. What if I started over on my year of quitting? [Note: I think my blog was on tumblr at this point so you might not know that I had sarcastically referred to taking a year to solely concentrate on writing, publishing, attending and giving readings as my year of quitting. Like quitting the job that sucked the life out of me for something that doesn't pay but is super-fulfilling.]
I remember now with great nostalgia the anxiety that, then, had made me cry. I was taking a huge leap of faith and I was doing it in the shittiest part of the year for taking leaps: winter. I had to fill a blank slate (woo, mixed metaphors) not knowing if my endeavor would be successful. One of my fb status updates at the time was "looking at design blogs and crying." Well, in my world, art begets art. I started myself on a disciplined schedule. I submitted every workday in the beginning --I would say the first 3-4 months. I kept up the momentum on faith, until the acceptances started coming in, validating my decision. I would say the best part was April through July. I was ON FIRE. I was so happy. I was so not prepared for what August would bring.
Now, despite my recent (and for the second time!) publication in MiPOesias, and upcoming pubs in RHINO, Hayden's, and Bone Bouquet, my submission pipeline is low. I feel like I don't have a lot of work to submit.
That feeling of having nothing may be false. It is false. I haven't been writing at the speed I was --I was generating 1-2 drafts A WEEK. For eight months. But I haven't published all of it. And I wrote a chapbook-sized sheaf of grieving poems, some of which have to be good enough to revise.
[Note: can you tell I've become worse at writing blog entries? It's my ability to concentrate. It's gone way down. I can't put together ideas as fluidly as before. Nor can I read a book all the way through. Or watch a whole movie without great restlessness. I don't watch them in the theatre any more-- at least for now. Therapist J says that this restlessness and lack of concentration is normal when experiencing grief. She also says it could go on for awhile.]
Anyway, I guess what I'm trying to say is even though I have great anxiety about "my year of starting over," I began "my year of quitting" also with great anxiety. And that time it was fruitful. I showed up and did the work and I was successful.
There's this little (actually it's not so little) voice, the anxiety voice, that says, you never knoooooowwwwww about the future. You might not be any good any more. Maybe you broke yourself.
But I leapt before and it was good. Maybe I can do it again. I'm lucky to be in a financial position to try it. I don't have to go back to some thankless job. I can do YWI part-time and maybe everything will be okay. Not grand, but okay. I'm shooting for okay.
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